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Original poster

I bet this has been done before, but what classics/modern classics have really left you baffled as to why they're so popular?

114 replies

Twinklemegan · 21/06/2008 22:56

Brave New World for me

Wuthering Heights to an extent, though I might need to try it again

I know there are others, but can't think at the moment.

OP posts:
Original poster
Twinklemegan · 21/06/2008 23:09

I've not heard of a lot of these

OP posts:
stillwaiting · 21/06/2008 23:08

The Time Travellers Wife is another one I hated. I'm starting to think I must be a philistine.

MarshaBrady · 21/06/2008 23:07

Brave New World absolutely. Tried to read it got to page 4 and had to stop.
Paul Auster books (except New York trilogy which was ok) and Jose Saramago The Double (Blindness was good).

notasheep · 21/06/2008 23:06

The Time Travellers Wife

Original poster
Twinklemegan · 21/06/2008 23:05

Oh God, you mightn't like it so don't blame me! It's very very strange, unlike any book I've ever read before or since.

OP posts:
Yorkiegirl · 21/06/2008 23:05

Message withdrawn

harpomarx · 21/06/2008 23:04

have just got catch 22 from a charity shop Twinkle - I haven't got round to reading it yet but might do so on your recommendation. I tried for ages to get into another book of his (Good as Gold) but just couldn't.

stillwaiting · 21/06/2008 23:03

hated CCM too

bran · 21/06/2008 23:03

Nearly everything written by Dickens (with the exception of A Christmas Carol). I find it hard to hear the characters, they don't seem real to me and so I can't lose myself in the story. There are other authors who also write in quite a self-conscious way and I always find it distracts from the book.

tinylady · 21/06/2008 23:02

The Lovely Bones
Brick Lane

Love love Wuthering Heights and Jamaica Inn

Original poster
Twinklemegan · 21/06/2008 23:02

Ah that's funny Stillwaiting - I was really pleasantly surprised by Catch22 - very odd book but I quite liked it.

I kind of agree about Jamaica Inn - not quite what I expected but I did enjoy it.

I liked CCM - much better than the film - though if I read it again I'd probably skim over some of it.

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BecauseImWorthIt · 21/06/2008 22:59

Captain Corelli's bloody Mandolin

tried 3 times to read it and it is just pretentious twaddle

stillwaiting · 21/06/2008 22:58

Middlemarch
Wuthering Heights
Jamaica Inn
Catch 22

bran · 21/06/2008 22:58

The Turn of the Screw. It is chilling and quite a good plot, but it's so flipping wordy. There are entire chapters where nothing at all happens, I find myself drifting off.